A family tree firmly rooted in memories

November 25, 2005|By Ann Therese Palmer Special to the Tribune.

When 70-year-old Jim Swanson, a retired Naperville attorney, saw the 45-foot Christmas tree in Marshall Field's State Street store's Walnut Room Wednesday, one of his first thoughts was of his grandmother, Gertrude.

"I felt a continuity with her," he said. "From the time I was a toddler, growing up on Chicago's Near West Side, every Christmas I remember she would take me to the Walnut Room for lunch to see the Christmas tree. This is part of our family history."

This part of Chicago history is about to undergo a change, with 2005 being the last Christmas season for the Marshall Field's name. Early next year, Federated Department Stores will replace the name with Macy's Chicago, part of the chain's strategy to nationalize its brands.

For Chicagoans, losing the Field's identity will require an emotional adjustment, though Federated says it will not change the Walnut Room, which connects many Chicagoans to the store, the season and the past.

Maureen Curran has been bringing her children to the Walnut Room since her oldest, now 12, was 1.

"Even though I live in Barrington, I want my children to have the same memories and to appreciate the city and Marshall Field's as much as I did," the mother of four said Wednesday. "Today I was absolutely heartbroken because it's the end of an era."

For Swanson's wife, Nancy, a recently retired counselor at Lyons Township High School, visiting the Walnut Room at Christmas "is part of Chicago. Nowhere else is there a store like this or a big tree like this."

That's why they waited for an hour and 20 minutes to have lunch there in the crowded dining room this week. Like her husband, Nancy reminisced during her one-hour lunch about past trips.

"My mother would bring my sister and me here," she said. "We'd look at the windows no matter how cold it was. I'd have a muffler over my face with a small space to breathe through. That was just Christmas for me.

"When our older daughter, Lara, was almost 2 years old, we brought her to the Walnut Room in a little turquoise velvet dress," she added. "She was just awestruck by the whole thing, and she was very impressed that her step-grandmother worked here, in adjusting. We'd stop and see her on our visit."

With Lara now married and living in North Carolina, where the Swansons occasionally celebrate the holidays, and their younger daughter, Maura, living in Naperville, the Swansons' holidays tend to be less predictable.

"This has become a constant in our lives," said Nancy, looking at this year's tree, decorated with 15,000 lights and 800 crystal ornaments custom-made by Austrian manufacturer Swarovski.

"Our kids may move away," she said. "We may have grandkids. Our circumstances may change. Now we're retired. But we always come to the Walnut Room during the holidays. It starts the whole Christmas season for me."

She and Jim are less enthusiastic about the renaming of Marshall Field's.

"I'm disappointed because we're losing the Field's name and the tradition behind it," Jim said. "But I wouldn't think of not going to see the tree next year. That's part of Christmas. That's part of our family tradition."